Devils Lake inter-ocean. (Devils Lake, Ramsey Co., Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1905, 1887-06-04

- SLC.
"How do you know thats' he asked quickly.
"You have never been in love-"
NO." she answered, II have never been In
love like that, but all the happiness 1 have
had in my life has come to me from loving.
l believe that love is the secret of the world
it is like the philosophers stone they used to
look for, and almost as hard to find, but when
one finds it it turns everything to gold. Per-
haps," she went on with a little laugh, "when
the angels left the earth they left us love be.
hind, hat by it and through it we MAJ climb
up to them again. 1t is the one thing that
lifts us above the brutes. Without love man
is n brute, and nothing but a brute; with love
lie draws near to God. When everything else
falls away the love will endure because it can.
not die while there is any life, if it is true love.
for it is immortal. Only it must be true
you see, it must be true."
He had got through her reserve now; the
ice of her manner broke up beneath the
warmth of her words, and her usually i'm
passive face had caught the life and light
from the eyes above and acquired q certain
beauty of its own. He looked at it, and
realized something of the untaught and i'll
regulated intensity and depth of the nature of
this curious girl. He caught her eyes and
they moved him strangely, though he was not
an emotional man, and was too old to experi.
cnce %spasmodic thrills at the chance glances
of q pretty woman. He went toward her.
looking at her %curiously.
ut would be worth living to be loved like
that" he said, moro to himself than to her.
She did not answer, but she let her eyes rest
on his. Indeed, she did more, for she put all
her soul into them and gazed and gazed till
John Mel felt as though he were being mes.
merized. And as she did 50 there rose up in
her breast a knowledge that if she willed it
she could gain this mans heart and hold it
against all the world, for her nature was
stronger than his nature. and her mind, un-
trained as it was, ~encompassed his mind and
could pass over it and beat it down as the
wind beats down a tossing sea. All this she
learned i'll a moment, III the twinkling of an
eye; she did not now how she knew it. but
she did know it as surely as she knew that the
blue sky stretched overhead, and what is
more, hc-for the moment, at any rate-kncw
it too. 1t caino on her as a shock and q rcve.
lation, like the tidings of a great joy or grief,
and for Il III left her heart empty of all
things else.
She dropped her eyes suddenly.
Il think" she said, quietly, that we have
been talking u great deal of nonsense, and
that l var to finish my sketch"
He got up and left her, for he had to get
home, saying as he did so that he thought
there was a storm coming up, the air was so
quiet, aud the wind had fallen as it does be-
fore an African tempest, and presently, on
looking round, she saw him slowly climbing
tue PERCEPTIONS ascent to the table land above.
1t was a glorious afternoon, such as one
sometimes gets in the African spring, although
it was so intensely still. Everywhere wcro
the proofs and evidences of life. The winter
was over, and now, from tho sadness and
sterility of its withercd age, sprang young and
lovely summer, clad in sunshine, be-diamoned
with dew and fragrant with the breath of
lowers. jess lay back and looked up into the
infinite depths above. How blue they were,
and how ineasurelcss! She could not see tho
angry clouds that lay like visible omens OH
tho horizon. See there, miles above her, was
one tiny circ!inS speck. 1t was u v%ulture,
watching her from its airy heights and de-
scendilS n little TO see il she We're dead or only
sleeping.
lnvolwntarily she shudIcred. The bird Of
death reminded her OF Death himself, also
hanging high up there in tho blue and wait
ing his Opportunity to fall upon the sleeper.
Then her eyes fell upon Il bough Of the glori-
Gus towering bush under which she lay. 1t
was not more than four feet above her head,
but she was SO still and motionless that a
jewcled hoiieysucker came and lowered over
the flowers, dartilg from one to another like
u many colorcd flash. Thence her glance
Travelled to the great column of powders that
lowered up above her and that seemed to say,
Il am very old. l have seen nan springs
and many winters, and have looked down on
many sleeping maids, and where are they
now! All ead-all dead" and an Old baboon
i'll the rocks with startling Suddenness burked
out "all dead in answer.
And as She lay and heard, her youthful
blood, drawn by natures magnetic force, us
the moon draws tho tide, rose in her veins
like the sap in the budding trees. and stirred
her virginia. serenity. All the bodily natural
part of her caught the tones Of natures happy
voice that babe her break her bands, live and
love, aud he Il woman. And 10! the spirit
within her answered to it and flung wido her
bosom's doors, and Of u sudden, US it were,
something quicienc,l and lived in her heart
that was Of her and yet had its own life-a
life apart; something that sprang from her
and another, and that would always be with
her now and could never die; and she roso
pale and trembling, as a woman trcmbles at
the first stirring Of the child that she shall
bear, and chung to the lowery bough of tho
beautiful bush above and then sank down
again, feeling the spirit of her girlhood had
departed from her, and that another angel
had entered there; knew that she loved with
heart and soul and body, and was n very
woman.
She had called to Love as the wretched call
to Death, and Love had come in his strength
md nosSessed her utterly. and now for a lit